What Matt Rhule said about naming Dana Holgorsen offensive coordinator

“We known as him final week and had him are available in. Had him have a look at every little thing. He’s obtained a protracted historical past of success offensively, each as a head coach and positively as a coordinator earlier than that. He simply form of offers us a recent perspective. I’m what we’re doing and who we’re doing it with and he was capable of say ‘hey, let’s go in these instructions over right here.’ I simply assume it offers us a terrific alternative to have one of many nice, nice offensive minds, a man that I’ve been associates with earlier than and that I belief – I’m excited to see what he does.”

“I feel it goes all the best way again to me going to the conference as a younger assistant and sitting and listening to him discuss. I coached towards him when he was at West Virginia. Noticed the evolution of what he did there when it comes to going to a chilly climate place, operating the soccer and nonetheless being actually explosive. We’re represented by the identical individuals so we see one another at quite a lot of totally different locations. He’s associates with my spouse and I, we come to Charlotte fairly a bit. He’s simply somebody I respect as a coach. It’s not a buddy factor, I simply respect him and respect what he’s accomplished. He obtained accomplished final yr and doubtless wanted a while and I known as him final week and stated ‘hey, are you able to are available in and assist?’ So he andPhil (Snow)got here in and form of seemed via every little thing. I feel he felt assured. As he stated to me, he likes our coaches, he likes our gamers and felt like he may assist.”

“It’s most likely distinctive. However it’s what’s wanted. It’s the correct factor. I feel what you’re going to see now as coaches get fired, I feel you’ll begin to see coaches begin leaving earlier than bowl video games and training bowl video games so the gamers can have some familiarity with them. I feel that was form of in my head. I feel you’ve seen coaches take jobs after which go there and coach the bowl sport. After I went to Baylor, I sat out and didn’t try this, so I didn’t actually have an opportunity to know the gamers till mid-spring. I admire all of the work our workers has accomplished. I like how onerous they’ve grinded and cared concerning the youngsters and accomplished their greatest and produced some good moments. I felt like we wanted some assist. I simply thought this was the correct factor to do. On the finish of the day, it could be daring, it could be distinctive. I didn’t convey him in at first with that. I stated ‘come and see.’ As a result of he obtained right here and he felt snug and Marcus (Satterfield) walked in there instantly and was like ‘inform me every little thing you want.’ Glenn (Thomas) did the identical factor, and Garret (McGuire) stated ‘I can translate this into your language.’ Dana (Holgorsen) is clearly a extremely good man offensively. He can work out what we’re doing and what we are able to do properly.”

“I wish to rating factors. I feel the factor with Dana – he got here up final yr to go to. As a head coach, generally you get fired and also you go to Alabama and work for Nick Saban or one thing like that. I checked out Coach Saban’s historical past of getting Invoice O’Brien and Lane Kiffin and all these guys as OCs, guys who’ve been head coaches, guys who’ve perspective. This can be a lonely job generally, and to have somebody within the constructing who’s accomplished that, you may have somebody to bounce concepts off of. On the time, I hoped that in some unspecified time in the future he’d be prepared to do that. If I’m being trustworthy about myself, if I look again, we’ve all the time accomplished a very good job of taking part in actually good protection. We’ve all the time accomplished a very good job of being bodily. We’ve all the time accomplished a extremely good job of growing gamers. Once we’ve had good offenses, we’ve received video games. Dana, after I take into consideration what he’s accomplished – going to Oklahoma State, what he did there. Going to West Virginia, the run sport that that they had. I competed towards them. It was a extremely bodily, robust workforce. It simply made sense to me.”

“I’m simply apprehensive about proper now. Marcus is about pretty much as good of a person as I do know. He may’ve stated ‘hey, fireplace me. Give me my cash, I’m going to go dwelling.’ He didn’t. Belief me, I get it, it’s a outcomes enterprise. However you’re nonetheless making an attempt to show some life classes to our guys. He humbled himself and stated ‘what do I have to do?’ The primary day, Dana (Holgorsen) stated to me when he watched apply, ‘hey, you’ve obtained actually good coaches. I’m watching EJ (Barthel), I’m watching Donnie (Donovan Raiola), I’m watching Satt (Marcus Satterfield), I’m watching Glenn (Thomas), I’m watching Garret (McGuire), there’s nice coaches right here.’ We simply have to search out the issues that our guys do properly and let’s simply do these issues and eradicate all the opposite stuff. Satt is on the market teaching the tight ends, Garret is teaching the wideouts, Donnie is teaching the o-line. Glenn is teaching the quarterbacks, EJ is teaching the operating backs. Something that Dana wants, they’re serving to him. He can’t are available in and alter the offense. He can’t are available in and set up the air raid. We’re in week 11. You’ll be able to are available in and say ‘what are the issues that we do properly? Who’re the blokes that make performs? Let’s work out find out how to do it with these guys.’ I feel that’s the massive image that he’s doing proper now.”

“Proper now, I’m simply targeted on proper now. When you watch what Dana (Holgorsen) did at West Virginia – we’re taking part in Lincoln Riley this week. All of them have the air raid ideas in them. Everybody goes to run, mesh and cross. The performs that they invented, everybody runs. It’s actually taken on a a lot greater image than that, if that is smart. Coach (Mike) Leach was nonetheless doing, actually, the air raid. When you watch what Coach Holgorsen has accomplished, once you watch what Coach Riley has accomplished, they’ve constructed highly effective offenses with huge individuals who run the soccer, play motion. Yeah, they’ve a few of these ideas in there, however they undertake different issues. To me, this is a chance. I’ve Tony White, who I feel is a good coach, who does some distinctive issues. He’s adjusted his protection to our individuals. I feel that’s been actually good. I feel Coach Holgorsen will alter his offense to our individuals. I don’t know what three weeks from now holds. I do not know. The offseason is the offseason. This isn’t about subsequent yr. That is about proper now. That is about us giving our guys the perfect probability to go on the market and win at USC.”

“I haven’t had a ton of these conversations. I feel the gamers are simply making an attempt to battle via final week. Final week was a troublesome week for us clearly. I gave the seniors a pair days off only for them to catch their breath. They’ve accomplished a lot for this system. I needed the younger guys final week to know that this isn’t about subsequent yr. That is about now, get higher now. We had some guys on the scout workforce that had been taking part in. On Thursday, all of us got here again collectively and I feel Dana (Holgorsen) had accomplished a very good job of claiming I’m right here to assist. I’m positive within the locker room there’s seismic conversations. Nobody has come to me saying that it’s a very good transfer or a foul transfer. They’ve simply requested what we’re doing subsequent. Simply being out on the sphere, it seems to be prefer it’s flowing very well and shifting actually easily. That was the take from Phil (Snow), he got here in and stated that he trusts Phil together with his life and that I’ve a extremely good group of children, you may have a very good defensive workers. It’s simply a few of these video games, it’s a play right here, a play there. You’re knocking the quarterback out of bounds on third and eight, when it is advisable to come round and sack, fumble the ball. It’s simply little edges right here and there that we’re combating for.”

“Dylan trusts me and trusts this system. He simply took it as ‘hey what are we doing at the moment.’ He’s making an attempt to get his again wholesome. All the blokes had a extremely optimistic response to it. It goes again to what I stated final week, gamers have to play, gamers have to go make performs. When you watch on Saturdays, gamers need to go make performs. Dana (Holgorsen) and the workers will give the gamers the perfect alternative to go make performs so we’d like the blokes to make them. The entire play calling factor, we’ve tried to deal with that, now go make some performs. Soccer is a sport the place gamers win video games. We’ve obtained good gamers, we anticipate them to go win some video games.”

“I feel that’s too huge of an image. I feel as we’ve moved all year long, we’ve simply tried to get too many issues to get too many guys concerned. We’ve had too many changes, I’ll put that squarely on me as a head coach. I’m not placing that on anybody else. Possibly a recent look from the surface, one with no context of the historical past, simply form of watching it, I feel that’s the largest factor. We’ll see what it does. I don’t know that all the sudden we’re going to attain 50 factors a sport, but when we are able to get 15 extra factors a sport, we are able to get better a couple of extra third downs. The hope is that we discover what we do properly and construct on that.”

“We run the identical performs. Teaching towards him, he ran inside zone, he ran counter, energy. Little extra out of 11 personnel, not as many huge units. The factor I’ve all the time revered about Dana was he took benefit of his gamers. He had Will Grier after we performed him, and Will obtained the ball out of his arms actually shortly and processed data actually shortly. The largest factor after I performed towards Dana is he’s only a actually aggressive play caller. I’m most likely not a brilliant aggressive individual in that space. I believed the perfect transfer for me was to herald somebody who’s that means, and offset that towards me.”

“He was form of in a consulting function the place he would go up there and spend a pair days there whereas they sport deliberate. He wasn’t a day-to-day operations place, he was extra of a advisor. It didn’t injure TCU anyway with us taking him.”